Occupying Power: Sex Workers and Servicemen in Postwar Japan

This study employs a range of published and unpublished materials from multiple countries. These include local newspapers, magazines, government surveys, and parliamentary debates. Articles that occupation officials censored can now be found in the Gordon W. Prange Collection in College Park, Maryland. The Allies also collected letters from sex workers, police reports, and local posters against prostitution, though they are now scattered from Washington to Canberra to Wellington. National archives in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan also helped me to reconstruct official policy. The League of Nations Archives in Geneva contained records of Japanese participation in international debates on sex work in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as Salvation Army records. The stories of particular communities came to light in the archives and libraries of Sasebo, Kure, and Yokosuka. A selection of documents and images can be found at www.sarahkovner.com.

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